Excerpt from the “Life and Times of John Rogers” (1817)

John Rogers, a future leader of the nondenominational Christian movement that grew out of the New Light schisms of the Great Revival, witnessed the jerks during an 1817 revival near the famed Cane Ridge Meetinghouse.

About that time, in 1817, a great Revival took place at Concord, under the labors of Elders Reuben Dooley, James Hughes, Stone, & others. My brother Samuel & his wife, two of my sisters, & a number of my acquaintances, were the subjects of that revival, & united with the Church at Concord. My brother Samuel, tho’ he had been a remarkably wild and wicked man, soon commenced preaching, to which he has devoted himself with great earnestness & efficiency, up to the present time (1856). Perhaps few men in the State have been instrumental in converting more persons than he.

In 1816, my brother Indentured me to Henry & Moses Batterton to learn the Cabinet business in Millersburg, Ky. I was bound for near six years, ‘till I should be 21. This prevented me from being often at their meetings, in 1817 & 18, during the progress of the revival alluded to. Still, occasionally I attended them, & witnessed the disorders of Jerking, dancing, swooning, &c. Yet it was palpable to a serious observer, that, connected with all these disorders, there was much of piety, & deep religious feeling. The spirit of prayer pervaded all hearts.

Source

“The Life and Times of John Rogers, of Carlisle, Kentucky,” 1856, 2 vols., 1:3, typescript, no. 2659, Southern Historical Collection, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.